Education in Trigunia
Education in Trigunia is solely the responsibility of private institutions which are competitive and self-regulated. In order to level the playing field between rich and poor Trigunians, the national, Oblast, and local governments fund vouchers for eligible students to attend schools of their choice. The schools themselves are responsible for hiring of teachers and administrators; however, teachers are considered to be national civil servants and are partially by the national government. The school calendar is created and implemented by the Ministry of Education and Culture and is standardized throughout the nation; however, the local regions have the ability to change the vacation dates based upon the weather and cultural conditions. The private schools under the current system are generally stand-alone schools and are not organized into any form of larger districts unless they are found in small communities, which has often much to with proximity than cooperation. However, some schools, particularly those classified as the most prestigious, carry formal or informal agreements of cooperation with their primary or secondary counterparts in order to maintain positive enrollment levels. Given the competition between the individual schools under the current private system, schools that are forced to close due to negative enrollment or lack of funds are given funding by a combination of the national, Oblast and local governments to remain open until the end of the current school year which aids in maintaining stability for students and gives time to parents to investigate replacement schools. Primary Education While Trigunia's education system is private, the educational structure, curriculum, and culture can and do vary greatly between pupils. However, most children share a generalized school experience. Students enter their first cohort at age six; starting school is considered a very important event in a child's life and is fundamental in shaping a positive attitude toward lifelong learning. Most regional elementary schools educate children from age 6 through age 12, ranging from first through sixth cohort. However, unlike at the secondary level, students are kept together in cohorts based upon these ages. Under the old public school system, students were frequently advanced to lower secondary school regardless of academic achievement, however, under the private school system this practice has ended with most of these schools administrating a Primary School Exit Examination and/or a series of smaller tests in tandem with alternative styles of assessment, depending on its policies. Primary school classes throughout the nation tend to be rather small, often only between ten to fifteen students. Primary school students are usually organized into small work groups, which have both academic and disciplinary functions. Students are taught to assume responsibility for the physical appearance of their classroom and school. For example, after eating snacks or lunch, students generally work in their small groups to clean tables, mop the floors and aid in the cleaning of dishes. Secondary Education Trigunian secondary school is split into two sections; the first, called Nizhnyaya shkola (Lower School), encompasses students between ages 12 and 15 years. However, unlike elementary school which organizes students by age cohort, Lower School organizes them by achievement. This achievement is determined by teacher observation and project merit. If it is deemed that a student, regardless of age, has proven adequately that they understand a concept or series of content knowledge, then they are allowed to move to the next series. After finishing primary school, children attend the first Higher Education Adult Education - These facilities are found within towns of any size - facilities range in size from single buildings to educate several dozen to large campuses resembling univerisities education thousands of adults The "Volkonsky Reforms" - many complaints foreign business clients, especially Hulstrians firms, had voiced the difficulty of effectively translating their data from one language to another, let alone the differing alphabets; the Ministry of Trade and Industry cited this problem as forcing foreign nations to look elsewhere for their data processing and technology needs; Minister Vasili Y. Domostroy state in a press conference that it was "estimated that possibly upwards of 14 billion rabols is lost" because of this problem - facing this problem, and their future prospects for Trigunia, starting in 2905, the government passed the Official Latinization of the Language, Educational & Budget Act which officially changed the old Tokundian alphabet used in the Rodshya language to those of Latin letters used in nearly all other languages on Terra; the government cited the need to modernize the language in the nation's quest to become a "high- and information technology, science and biotechnology superpower" or simply a "knowledge economy" - overseen by the privately-run and funded Obshchestvo po izucheniyu Rodshya yazyka (Society for Research on the Rodshya Language - ORY); which is the official authority on the language, contributes to linguistic research on Rodshya and other Delic languages, and is charged with publishing the official dictionary of the language - still faced many protests over the change; many traditionalists still use the old alphabet and continue to publish in it; in order to ease their apprehension, the government also sponsored in the bill the creation of good archives to maintain the old and offers classes in the old language for higher education students to take free of cost, not surprisingly, most of the takers of these courses are history or humanities students who wish to better understand the past through the reading of the actual primary documents - since the Reforms officially made the entire country illiterate overnight, the government funneled billions of rabols in order to train educators and fund classes to teach all adult Trigunian nationals to read and write with the new alphabet absolutely free of charge; even with heavily-subsidized childcare and transportation costs in most areas - this movement came to known as Operatsiya Vpered! (Operation Forward!); although they came to be known as the Volkonsky Reforms (Reformy Volkonsky) after Education and Culture Minister Andrei Ivanovich Volkonsky, the driver of the reforms - this change proved successful and by 2910 a national poll cited that 90% of the adult population felt "comfortable" with the new alphabet and the Ministry of Education and Culture declared their mission a success - however, the Education Ministry agreed in the necessity of keeping many classes open throughout the nation to all Trigunians for at least another ten years as of 2910. It is expected that on the 31 January 2920, the last of such government-sponsored classes will be shut down Technology Literacy - to coincide with the billions to "modernize" the alphabet, the second part of the Volkonsky Reforms fell within the area of educating adult Trigunians in technology literacy - with the government's push to adapt a knowledge-based economy, the former workers, and tehnologicheskie immigrantov ("technological immigrants") or techno-immi-tov, were given opportunity to take technology classes at numerous private and government sponsored adult education facilities. Category:Trigunia